Robot Adept

Chapter 16 Decision

Bane shook his head. “He learned tricks he never knew before! I’m in a position to know. I could have finished the match by being smarter in the Chase, and now one more loss can finish it the other way. I know not we’er I have really been trying.”

“You tried,” Agape said. “You were ahead, but then he used those peculiar serves.”

“I know not who could have taught him those,” he said. “I played the game all my life, but ne’er could match my father, and knew of none other could. Stile would not have trained him, and—” Then a thought caught up. “The renegade animal heads! They played not with others, but there were stories of an elephant head who were marvelously dexterous with his trunk! That could be it!”

“That, and the natural skill of your human body,” she agreed.

“Aye, it be a good body,” he said with a certain resigned pride. “This machine body makes errors not, but also can handle complex surprises not. He caught me often enough with shots I could calculate not in time. He knew my limits, as he should. It were his body longer than mine.”

“But you can adjust.”

“Aye. He can catch me once or twice with a new shot, but thereafter I be attuned to the device, and it be useless. I will be stronger for the next game, and stronger still for the third. In only a month, he cannot have mastered enough new things to compensate for that.”

She changed the subject. “Let’s go look at Nepe.” She meant their child, who did not yet exist. But there was daily progress in the construction of the robot body, to be like that of a human baby, and the development of the particular programming required to enable that body to interface harmoniously with a partial Moebite, while being closely patterned after that of his body. Agape herself was gaining mass, eating voraciously, preparing for the time of fission. If Bane won the contest, and the two of them had to separate, they would delay long enough to get Nepe started. That, at least, they intended to salvage from victory.

Next day Bane was ready. This was freestyle, and he had prepared diligently. The key was in the paddle. Technology was able to produce a wide variety of sizes, substances, weights and surfaces, and he had tested them as thoroughly as he could. He now had a paddle that was virtually magical in it propensities. The touch of finger or thumb on the controls near the joining of blade and handle could change the hardness of the rubber (it wasn’t rubber, but tradition called it that) all the way from diamond to marshmallow, and the adhesion from glass to glue. The paddle could hold the ball so that it would not drop off, or be so slippery that the ball bounced away with its spin unaffected. It could completely damp out both the force and spin of an incoming ball, or put on devastating force and spin of its own. Because the nature of the surface was exactly what he specified it to be, without changing the appearance, the other player would have little notion what was coming. He could make an obvious gesture, applying phenomenal spin, but set the paddle on null so that none of that spin was imparted, and the other player would miss by compensating for nonexisting spin. Such paddles had been illegal for centuries for tournament play, but popular for trick play.

Mach had never used one, preferring to hone his skill within tournament regulations. Adaptation to such a paddle could spoil a serious player for tournaments, because his reflexes were wrong. Only the mediocre players tried to shift back and forth between types; the top ones settled on legal variants and perfected their technique with these. Indeed, a top player could defeat any of the special-paddle players, because surface was only part of the nature of the game. Skill and training and consistency counted for more.

That was one reason that Bane had not played his best in the first game: he had adapted to the specialized paddle for the freestyle, and so not been in perfect tune for the standard paddle. He had invoked a different program for the other, so that he did play well, but he could have played better had he put all of his energy into perfecting his technique with it. Instead he had settled for the level of skill Mach had developed, and put his energy into the special mode. He expected to win this second game, because he knew that neither Mach’s prior experience nor that of his own body prepared them for the type of play and deception this paddle offered. A good player with a conventional paddle could handle a mediocre one with a special paddle—but he was now a good player with a special paddle. That made it a new ball game.

Indeed, he had practiced against some of the ranking players of Proton, in special matches. They had used their legal paddles, and regarded it as an intriguing challenge to meet the special one. A number of them were clearly superior to Mach, as he had played before, but the paddle added considerably to Bane’s effectiveness. He had taken them, in the early games, then lost again as they learned how to compensate, but all admitted that he was a more formidable player this way. They doubted that any player on the planet could take him in the first game, this way; the difference was too striking. It was hardly possible to learn in the course of a single game what he had spent a month mastering, and it was not easy to do in several games.

So Bane was confident. Mach, attuned to the conventional mode of the first game, would find himself up against a totally different creature in the second. He would compensate—but hardly before he had lost the game.

Yet as they stepped up to their ends of the composite image table, Mach seemed oddly confident. Had he devised a similar paddle, and practiced against it? That seemed unlikely, because the tricks he had learned with the conventional paddle should have taken most of his training time.

They rallied, as before, and things seemed normal. Mach had a different paddle, but of course so did Bane. He did not try any special shots, preferring to save them for the game. Soon they were ready, and Mach caught the ball and hid his fists under the table.

Bane guessed right, and was right; he had the serve. Now was time for the surprises.

He started with a fierce crosscourt topspin, the rubber softened and rendered tacky so that it imparted far more spin to the ball than would ordinarily have been the case. Mach, judging by the prior surface, would fail to compensate sufficiently, and the ball would fly well beyond the end of the table.

Mach returned it, and the ball did loop up, but the force was gone, and it plunked down in the center of the table. Obviously he had been caught by surprise, but had a lucky shot. Table tennis was a game of skill, but luck played its part, as it did in every game to some extent. That was part of the excitement: the invocation of chance.

No problem. Bane smashed it down the center, an easy put-away shot. The first point was his.

Except that the ball looped up giddily, and somehow managed to catch Bane’s side of the table again. Was the frame translation mechanism malfunctioning? No, the arc was true; Mach had just somehow managed to aim it right, obviously with no certainty on his part. Sometimes it happened.

Bane made sure it would not happen again. He thumbed his paddle to maximum force, producing a surface that had all the thrusting power of a trampoline, and smashed the ball down with such velocity that Mach would have to retreat far back from the table to have any hope of returning it.

But Mach remained up close—and the ball, crazily, came back, in another shaky but fair return. It seemed impossible, but there it was. How could it have happened?

Bane, shaken by this freak series, tried a trick shot. He wound up as if for the hardest slam yet, then dinked the ball down just over the net with a heavy backspin that damped it almost to a standstill.

Mach, though, was ready. The tip of his paddle caught the ball and nipped it to the side, forcing Bane to dive for the return—and then, of course, Mach slammed the setup to the other side, winning the point. Love-one.

But Bane knew that freak shots could not be depended on. Mach had been extraordinarily lucky in his returns, then pounced on the opportunity that offered when Bane changed the pace. Had Mach been playing well back from the table, in anticipation of a slam, he would never have caught up to the dink shot.

He served again, this time putting on backspin so heavy that though the ball started fast, it slowed dramatically and failed to clear the table for the second bounce on the far side. Bane returned it without even trying to counter the spin; as a result, the ball sailed up in an invitation for another smash.

Bane of course accepted the invitation, and slammed it off Mach’s backhand corner. But Mach took it on his backhand without effort, and again it looped back.

Bane slammed it off Mach’s forehand corner. Yet again Mach intercepted it in what should have been a return that careered wildly, but again the ball simply looped back to strike at the center of Bane’s table.

This was crazy! Mach wasn’t even trying to play offensively; he was simply making fluke returns! What was he up to? No one could play that way for long without losing the point; human reflexes were not swift enough or good enough to handle slammed balls up close.

This time Bane softened his rubber and sliced, so that the ball curved visibly in the air before striking the table. The sidespin did not have much effect on the bounce, but would be very strong against the opposing paddle. The shot was hard enough so that Mach would not have much time to analyze or compensate.

But Mach didn’t try. He simply poked his paddle at the ball—and the ball looped back in another of those high, amateurish returns.

This time Bane had been watching that paddle closely. The angle had not even been correct. By rights the ball should have flown off the table, a lost point. Yet it had flown fair, to the center of the table. It was like magic.

Magic! Suddenly Bane caught on. Mach had gotten hold of a magic paddle! That possibility had never occurred to him. There had been no magic paddles in Phaze, because there was no point to them; why use magic to foul up a game of skill? But evidently someone had crafted one, perhaps simply for the challenge of it, and now Mach had it.

Bane tried to slam the ball again, but his realization about the paddle distracted him, and he missed the table. Love-two.

Obviously the paddle was enchanted so that any shot it made was fair. If no effort was made to guide it, the ball returned in neutral fashion: a high arc to the center of the table. If Mach made a more aggressive shot, then it went where he sent it—but wouldn’t miss if he sent it wrong. Thus he could try for the most difficult shots with the certainty of making them. Or not try at all, and still get the ball back. He could not miss.

How was he, Bane, to win the game—when his opponent could not miss a shot? All his preparation with the special paddle had been nullified in a single stroke! Only in Phaze would magic work—but Mach was playing in Phaze. Since the validity of a shot was determined at the point of the ball’s contact with the paddle, it didn’t matter that there was no magic on Bane’s end of the table; the ball was correctly guided there.

If they had set it up to exchange courts at the halfway point of each game—but in this special situation that wasn’t feasible. So Mach would have the magic throughout the game.

Bane had thought he would win this game readily. Now, suddenly, he faced defeat and loss of the entire contest, because he had overlooked this possibility.

He glanced at the audience. They were watching, in Proton and in Phaze, but would not speak to him in the midst of the game. What advice could anyone give him, anyway? It could not remove the enchantment on Mach’s paddle!

He was behind by two points, a trifling amount, yet he felt like resigning, to spare himself the humiliation that was coming. Could he win even a single point?

But battered pride kept him going. He would play his best regardless, so that everyone would know it. He would not give up just because the game had become hopeless.

He tossed up the ball for the third serve, and tried for a horrendous slice.

And missed the ball entirely. That was the danger in trying too hard; the angle was so sharp and the speed of the paddle so great that the tiniest mis judgment could become devastating.

Love-three. When the server made his pass at the ball, that was the serve. He had missed his serve and forfeited the point. Some brave try that had been!

Missed the ball entirely…

That was not supposed to happen to a robot; it was an unforced error. But the body was governed by Bane’s mind, and he had overridden it to try his own extreme technique. By going beyond the body’s parameters, he had enabled it to err. Yesterday Mach had used trick shots that caused the computer brain to miscalculate; this time he had done it to himself. But that was of lesser significance.

Suddenly he realized how he could give himself a fighting chance. This game was not yet over!

He served again, making the paddle surface hard and fast, applying minimal spin, just enough to help control the ball. Spin made limited difference now, because the magic paddle nullified it; the balls Mach returned were spinless. But speed and placement counted, because Mach had to get the paddle to the ball. He now needed spin only to help control his shots.

Mach returned it with that familiar loping shot that was the paddle’s default. Ready for this, Bane smashed it back. Mach’s second return was higher, a perfect setup.

Bane decided to test the limit of the magic. He set his paddle for maximum hardness, and smashed the ball down as hard as his metal arm could do it. The ball flattened significantly against his paddle, then rebounded with such force that when it caught the edge of the table it broke, with half of it dropping down the side of the table while the other half dragged after.

But Mach’s paddle was there, jabbing at it. And the tip of the paddle caught the crushed remnant and hooked it over the net so that it plopped in the center on Bane’s side.

The point did not count; the broken ball had to be replaced. But another type of point had been made: the magic paddle could return anything at all, even a demolished ball. As long as it touched it.

Bane served again, the same way. Mach returned the same way. A very similar shot offered, and Bane wound up for the same smash. But this time he bent his wrist sharply back and slammed the ball off the opposite side of the table.

Mach, caught by surprise, did not even try for the ball. The point was Bane’s. One-three.

The magic paddle could not return what it did not touch. As far as it was concerned, the ball was out of play. It was up to Mach to get it there in time.

And up to Bane to see that Mach could not get it there in time.

The remainder of the game was grueling. The robot body that made no unforced errors, and the magic paddle that never missed its shot. Bane played every shot for maximum motion on the opponent’s part, getting Mach off balance, putting the ball where he did not expect it, so that his living-body reaction was strained, and errors occurred. Mach had been a machine all his life and still tended to depend on the automatic reliability of it; but now he was living flesh, and the flesh was fallible. He could not always get to the ball, and each time he failed, Bane won the point.

But Bane’s body was healthy, and the magic paddle made returns easy. He did not readily miss the ball. So the rallies were long and hard, and only when Mach tired did Bane score. That was the final key, however: Bane’s body did not tire. He was able to keep the pace indefinitely.

So inevitably, the final point was his. Bane had beaten the magic paddle, and won the game. The score was tied, one game apiece.

“I think some thought you were not trying hard to win,” Agape said when they were private, after the grueling game. “That doubt is gone.”

“It be strange,” Bane said. “When it looked hopeless, and I thought there was no point in continuing, that was when I had to try hardest to win.”

“Tomorrow will decide it,” she said.

“Tomorrow will decide it,” he agreed. “He won the game I thought he would lose, because the flesh can play not as reliably as a machine—but the flesh managed to strain the limits o’ the machine through innovative play. He lost the game methought he would win, because o’ the magic paddle—but the machine managed to strain the limits o’ the flesh. Tomorrow—I think no one can know the outcome o’ that game.”

“No one can know,” she agreed.

“But an I win, and we must separate—”

“There will still be Nepe,” she said. “We can surely delay that long.”

“Aye. But an Mach return to this body—”

“Where else?” she asked with a wry smile.

“It would please me if thou didst play Fleta for him, again. I oppose him, but I hate him not, and his love for the filly be true.”

She did not answer right away. “I thought never to play that role again,” she said at last.

“Aye. But an I deprive him o’ her, what do I owe him in return?”

“And what of Fleta? What do you owe her?”

That returned him to reality. “Must needs I find another way.” He got up. “I will talk with Blue.”

“And I,” she said.

They went to Citizen Blue, who met them graciously, with Sheen. “On the morrow, mayhap I will win the match,” Bane said. “And deprive myself and Mach o’ our loves, and the alien and the filly o’ theirs. That be no easy thing.”

“The imbalance must be corrected,” Blue replied. “But you will be able to visit the frames, while we work to find the key for correction.”

Bane took a deep breath. “Methinks we have the key already. It be between thee and my father.”

Blue arched an eyebrow.

“The Oracle learned it,” Bane continued. “There be a line between ye two, and that be the line Mach and I followed. Methinks thou couldst exchange, an thou didst try.”

Blue whistled. “And lose our loves, even as we have asked of you.”

“I thought o’ it not that way!” Bane protested.

“But it may be that way,” Blue said grimly.

“Unless there be another way. The Oracle be studying that.”

“What way is that?”

“To end the separation o’ the frames, and merge them again.”

“But that separation is for a reason!”

“A reason that accomplished not its purpose. The imbalance remains.”

Citizen Blue nodded. “That would be a whole new game!”

“A game that leaves all of us our loves.”

“We must explore this! If you and Mach—”

“First must I win the game tomorrow. Then will Mach work with me, and with thee. Then can the root of this be explored.”

“Yes. Win tomorrow, and the essential tool is ours. The Oracle and the Book of Magic, reunited—”

“Aye,” Bane said, feeling better. Now he could do his utmost, and believe that the best would come of it.

The final game was Doublet: played with two balls and four paddles. It was not popular with serious players, because it tended to get wild, but dabblers liked it, as did some specialists.

Each player had one standard paddle, and one freestyle paddle. Play was not required to alternate between them; rather, each ball had to be played with its own paddle. Thus this represented two separate games, played simultaneously. It could be a formidable challenge.

Bane had the first serve, which meant one pair of balls. He was required to serve the standard one first: the yellow ball, with the standard paddle. The second had to follow not before the first cleared the net, and not after the first returned; the window was while the opposite player was playing the first. Thereafter there was no set order; the balls were simply played as they came.

Bane had the standard paddle in his left hand. He tossed up the yellow ball with his right, his fingers also holding the other paddle, and struck it with the correct paddle. Then he tossed the red ball with his left hand, and struck it with his high-tech paddle. Both balls were served crosscourt, requiring Mach to orient on the extremes rapidly.

The first was coming back as he completed his serving pass for the second. He played it back to the same court he had served the red one, and with a shorter stroke, so that it gained somewhat on the other. But Mach played them back to opposite courts. Whether it was better strategy to play them to the same court or to opposite courts was an open question; it depended on the player and the situation. Already Bane felt his robot intellect being extended; this was no easy task for it, tracking two at once.

Now the two balls were crossing oppositely. Theoretically there was the danger of them colliding, and that was a complication in regular play. But for this game there was no problem; the yellow and red balls were on different planes of reality, and would pass through each other without interacting. In fact, that applied to the paddles, too: the wrong one could not touch the ball, literally. Thus there would be no question whether the ball was returned with the wrong paddle; if it returned at all, it was by the right paddle. Bane wasn’t quite sure how this worked; perhaps the seemingly solid balls were mere images, extensions of the images on the far side of the table. They seemed solid, but he had learned not to believe everything that had seeming, in either frame.

Bane played conservatively, concentrating on one ball at a time, so that he could devote his whole competence to it. He put intricate spins on the red ball—only to see them nulled by the magic paddle Mach used. He went for speed and placement with the yellow ball, because the standard paddle was not as sharp on spins. But Mach could handle such straightforward play.

Mach played slow on the red ball, retreating from the table to return it late, and fast on the yellow one. As a result, the two soon came into alignment. Bane tried to separate them in space, if not in time, angling the red one right and the yellow one left.

That was his tactical error. Mach slammed them simultaneously, crosscourt, and Bane was unable to field them both. He had to let one go, and chose to sacrifice the red one. He returned the yellow one.

Love-one. Now it was down to a one-ball game, with standard equipment. Mach had won their prior such game—but Bane had zeroed in on the new tricks and was ready for them. Deceptive spin would not catch him. Also, Mach could no longer use the magic paddle, so could fail to return the ball. This was better for Bane. He played hard, moving the ball from side to side and front to back, until Mach’s fallible living body made the error of sending too gentle a return, and Bane put it away for the point. One-one.

Now it was Mach’s serve, both balls. Because of the special nature of this game, the serve changed each time, so as to prevent a facile combination of serves from generating too great a run of points. He served the yellow ball fast, crosscourt, and the red one slow, downcourt. He was trying to get the two aligned again, so as to catch Bane in the same split as before. But this time Bane had a trick of his own to play.

He returned the yellow fast and the red slow but not easy. He set his paddle to max-tack and sent what was known as the double loop: a high shot with extremely potent topspin. It came down on Mach’s side almost vertically, and bounced away almost horizontally, retaining formidable spin. That would be an extraordinarily difficult shot to return, if it were not for the magic paddle.

Meanwhile, the yellow ball had lapped the red one, and he played it before the red one landed, slamming it to the far corner. Mach knew that if he went for it, he would never get to the red one. So he let the yellow go, losing the point, and caught the red.

It was one-ball table tennis again—but this was the variant Bane had proven he could win. He smashed the ball again and again, until he maneuvered Mach out of position and placed a shot he could not reach. One - three, Bane’s favor.

That set the complexion of the game. Bane had greater reliability when the game was down to one ball; Mach had the advantage with two, because his living body was more flexible and his magic paddle gave him one sure return. After the initial points, neither tried to align the two balls; it gave too much of an advantage to the one who had the first chance to make simultaneous slams. Mach won the first ball more often than not, and Bane the second. The lead varied, and changed often, but it was basically even ball.

Thus it was that they came to the conclusion neither had wanted: a 20-20 tie. Now it would be sudden death; the first to gain an advantage of two points would win the game and the match.

Bane was torn: should he play conservatively, or draw on a special shot he had saved for emergency use? If he played conservatively, they would probably continue splitting points, and the game would drag out interminably. If he gambled on tricky but risky play, he could win quickly—or lose as quickly. It was his set of serves; the initiative was his.

As a robot, he knew that his best chance was conservative. Mach, in the volatile living body, could make mistakes, magic paddle notwithstanding. But as a living being who was merely housed in a machine, he felt that his best chance was to take the gamble. At least it would be over quickly.

He gambled. He served the yellow ball low and fast, so that Mach would not be able to do more than return it. He did the same with the red one. The magic paddle would return it regardless, but if he served it easy, Mach could take the initiative and make an aggressive shot, and Bane did not want that.

The yellow came back. This time he sent it in a phenomenally high shot, a towering trajectory that sent it as far aloft as the crown of a tree. That effectively put it out of play for a few seconds. Meanwhile he returned the red one with a backspin so strong that the ball actually bounced backward, back across the net, rather than on forward for Mach’s return.

Would Mach be so surprised that he let the ball go? If so, he would lose the point. Then Bane would have the lead, and the advantage on the remaining ball.

Mach stepped around the table and went for the red ball. This was legal; a player could strike the ball on the opponent’s side of the table, if its natural impetus carried it there. Many players did not know that, but of course Mach did. But how would he play it—when he was unable to cross the curtain? That was the question, and because Bane did not know the answer, it was the essence of his gamble.

Mach stepped forward, across the midline—and disappeared. He was now entering the magical representation on the other side of his table. No provision had been made to project his image, here. He was in limbo.

Abruptly the red ball changed course, taking off at right angles, crossing the table, bouncing, and sailing off the far side near the net. Bane had no chance to get it. He had lost the gamble; Mach had struck the ball he saw in his frame, and the question of its nature in Proton now was answered: it was illusion, and was affected by Mach’s stroke.

Twenty-twenty-one. Bane was behind, and now the yellow ball was coming down. Mach reappeared, circled the table, and set up for a left-handed slam. The element of surprise had failed, and now Mach had a setup to put away. Bane might return it, but he had lost the initiative, and the point would almost certainly be Mach’s.

Mach slammed it—and it touched the corner of Bane’s side and veered crazily away, an unplayable ball. Mach had taken his own gamble, striving for a placement ordinarily beyond human ability, and won.

Won everything.

And Bane, knowing that he had tried his best, honestly, and lost despite it, was relieved. He had given Citizen Blue the key to a possible reversal of the situation, while he was on Blue’s side; now he was on the other side, by the terms of the deal, and was no longer free to provide such information. The Contrary Citizens and Adverse Adepts had no more wish than Adept Stile or Citizen Blue to see the frames destroyed; perhaps some mutually satisfactory accommodation would yet be worked out. So it was not necessarily the end of decency.

Or so he hoped.